Constantiner's blog

All the latest Flash platform related news are about Adobe’s rebranding of Flex Builder which is now Flash Builder. You can read more from Serge Jespers, Lee Brimelow, Duane Nickull, Mark Doherty, Tim Buntel or Ryan Stewart and the Lee Brimelow’s FAQ. And I’ve decided to share some thoughts about this decision.

As we know Flash was born as animation technology and then become RIA platform with its own scripting language etc. To be precise the RIA definition itself is derived from Flash MX. So we have animation platform with some interactivity (ActionScript) and very great IDE for animation (timelines, tweens etc) but EXTREMELY poor for scripting with very basic code editor and procedure code in frames across application movie.

Time by time the situation is changing. Flex technology with declarative MXML was launched earlier than MS’s WPF with XAML (and MS possibly didn’t think about WPF/E aka Silverlight that times). Flex was right targeted for developers to develop APPLICATIONS (not movies). Right, developers-developers-developers just before MS’s XAML/.NET based family with great designer/developer workflow.

But anyway who knows about Flex? Before >=2 version almost nobody knows. A lot of Flash developers can’t adopt this new technology for number of reasons. And the situation was broken after Flex 2 was released. We can call it as the victorious procession of Flash platform for developers. But who knows about this procession outside Flash community? A much less amount of people than we can expect.

The most people just things nothing if I represent myself as a Flex developer. They don’t know about the subject and even don’t care. And if I try to explain my specialization in terms of Flash platform they become excited — oh yes! It is great tool for animations, rich banners, YouTube and promo sites. But what you say? You write code? ActionScript code? How very interesting. But ActionScript is very poor programming language, you know? What? It now supports classes? And even some other cool features? Great! But what about IDE? MS has great Visual Studio for their WPF and Silverlight but Adobe has just Flash IDE with just VERY BASIC code hilighting. It is funny you know? What? You have Flex Builder which is Eclipse based and has some code editor which is not so powerful as JDT but has a couple of features? Really? That’s cool, guy! Sorry, I’m hurry now. See you!

It takes a long time to divide Flex as developer centric technology from Flash as technology for creative people. Ok. We have Flash platform as an umbrella for all this family. Flash (means timeline and poor code editor)? Platform (WTF?)?

In other side everybody knows Visual Studio. And calls it great (I can’t share it — in my opinion VS is not great as code editor but can be with ReSharper for example). And new Silverlight technology (developers, developers, developers!). Nobody can doubt Silverlight is great for developers. And it has really great designer/developer workflow (which Flex Flash will have only with Flex Flash Catalyst released). Maybe it isn’t great for animations but who cares?

Ok. What we have now? We have Flash IDE and Flash Builder IDE (looking forward for questions from customers and colleges about what is difference and why Flash Builder IDE has advanced code editor but can’t compile fla-files and Flash IDE can compile them but useless for serious coding?). And we have Flash Catalyst which can use projects imported from Flash Builder IDE but can’t share the same project and can’t edit fla-files. And have one ugly child aka Flex SDK which is what? How to explain colleges and customers why Flash Builder IDE hasn’t timeline and can’t build flas but can use something which called Flex SDK (why Flex? why Flash?). And in other hand Flex SDK can be used to develop only in Flash Builder IDE and Flash Catalyst but not in Flash IDE. And what about beginners? Why Adobe going to drive them mad?

Well, Silverlight has ONE brand (which was divided from WPF). Maybe they won’t attract a lot of creative persons aka designers and animators but they have good positioning. So now Adobe tries to do the same using Flash brand. Which become well-established for creative persons but not for software or enterprise developers (sorry for that f-word enterprise word). And never will. It is much more effective to use Flex naming for all the Flash platform parts in this situation (hope creative persons won’t bear a grudge for it and won’t become MS persons ). Yes Flash is de-facto standard for web animation and MS is very poor about creativity. So I hope Flex player can be successful.

Or maybe it is better to introduce some new generic brand for Flash, Flex and AIR (the whole platform)? Anyway Flash Builder is way to nowhere.

Anyway it is just only my opinion

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For a long time I spend more than 90% of my developing sessions writing Java code (yes, Spring, JPA, BlazeDS etc). As a Flex developer I felt not very comfortable for a first time but my current project (you can believe me it is a great project!) requires a kind of person who can wear two hats — both server and client developer.

But now I’m very pleased to that situation. The point is that I can surely say: I prefer to write Java code with much more pleasure than Flex. Don’t mind I still love Flex but I’m talking about IDE world. I use JDT+WTP (both Eclipse based) for my Java coding and Flex Builder 4 (prerelease program) for Flex side.

Flex Builder has a lot of cool features you can easily put in product’s feature list (yes its all about marketing). It has great design view. It now has some code generation and (can’t you believe that?) getter/setter generation+file templates. FlexUnit support also sounds good to advertise Flex Builder. And of course a couple of refactorings. That’s great for version 4! We’ll see even more in version 10 I hope.

But I’m just developer. I don’t need this design view at all. Please remove it from my Flex Builder bundle. I still can’t use FlexUnit support and (to tell the true) don’t believe I’ll use it any often. Because of it can’t compile as fast as in Java projects and (and it is annoying thing) it always launches in Flash Player as ordinary Flash application. There is no headless Flash Player and corresponding issue in Adobe JIRA is still without changes and any priority (it isn’t so cool as Design View, right?). And there is no way to intercept all the player exceptions (corresponding JIRA issue — two years old — is still low priority) so you can only rely on timeout to check if tests are failed silently. But the main principle of unit tests is to be fast. If they are very slow to compile and launching them always switches to the browser or debug view and finally take some timeout — what do you think about how often I’ll run them? You know the answer.

I’m not a graphic designer. I’m just a developer. I spend most of my working time in code editor. And can’t enjoy it. But!

The good thing is I use Java editor to develop server side. And I have almost perfect code editor for free. It is just 3.4.2 version and hasn’t build in design view (but available as separate free plug in for Swing and SWT) but I really enjoy writing code there.

I have a lot of navigation options. I have very fast code analysis. I have quick fixes. I have templates which really rules. And I have very useful and fast unit tests. I even don’t need to run server to be confident — my tests are guaranteed my code is working. Getters/setters you say? A lot of dialogs and manipulations? In JDT I can only press ⌘1 and voilà. I have getter/setters generated. A lot of features for everyday coding.

If you think this post is just unproductive complaints I can answer you’re not right. I’ve found the solution. Just divide you working day between Java and Flex. 60/40 or even 90/10. And you can enjoy both comfortable coding and cool looking result (I mean great Flex apps). At least I’m pretty happy now. And wish you the same.

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As I reported in my previous post there is finally solution for true mocks using loadBytes tricks. Nevertheless it will be great if Adobe provides some Dynamic Proxy solution for Flash Player/ActionScript (to avoid tricks and to easily create some other useful solutions like AOP etc.). If you’re agreed with me please vote for corresponding issue in Adobe JIRA (if you aren’t agreed please do it too — I think it will be pity for you in future to realize you definitely need this feature but just missed my message in the right moment (I mean it is really the right moment, isn’t it ?)) So you can find the additional details and discussion over the link.

The second great issue I would like you to vote is headless Flash Player. It is also very useful for unit testing (and I hope not only for it). So you can set up CI (continuous integration) for your project without any GUI subsystem using only pure shell environment. If you’re Windows guy and know nothing about systems without GUI (remember DOS hehe) just believe me it can easily be applied to you personally in the future if you’ll take a part in some project which follows best practices. So vote for headless Flash Player!

After that I just want to thank you personally and from grateful Flash Platform community

PS. As far as we are started this topic please vote for one more issue from great guy Benjamin Dobler about byte manipulations with Video. Please vote!

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For someone who delays unit testing in Flex/Flash projects because of absence of Dynamic Proxies (and true Mock objects) now become good times. Asmock project hosted on Sourceforge reaches real success with generating classes/interfaces using loadBytes tricks. As Richard Szalay (the project owner) says the public API is actually a port from Rhino Mocks, a record/replay/verify mocking framework for .NET. There are still some limitations posted on StackOverflow (where you can leave your questions as well) but it is just beginning (beta 1 stage)!

I think it is really good news for unit testing on Flash platform. Looking forward for great improvements And the most interesting thing is Richard is MS guy (he develops on .NET platform according his bio).

As you know there are at least two mock frameworks for ActionScript: mock-as3 and mock4as but both of them requires creating mock classes manually.

So lets try this new solution.

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Periodically all of us need some changes. So I’ve decided to switch over to some new project to improve my skills in other environment and to meet some new people. I’m looking now for a new Flex(and/or)AIR project.

If you need 2+ year experienced Flex developer with 6+ year of Flash platform background for telecommute collaboration - it’s about me. I’m a fanatic of Rich Internet Applications and if your project is about social networking, Web 2.0, eLearning, collaboration, trading, e-commerce etc. - I’ll join to you with pleasure.

My strengths are deep knowledge of Flex framework, extending and creating of components, Cairngorm etc. OOP, clear code conventions and best practices are my second nature. JEE/SQL knowledges in addition.

I’m self-proclaimed RIA evangelist (here in Russia), manager of Russian Flash Platform User Group (RAFPUG), speaking and participating in a number of conferences, active blogging (mostly for Russian auditorium) and journalism.

So if you’re interested in details feel free to contact me by e-mail (constantiner at riapriority dot com) or using contact form. I’ll send resume/CV and project list by request.

You can also find more information in this blog’s sidebar or my LinkedIn profile.

Hope it will be very productive collaboration!

Update: At this moment I’ve found a very amazing project! Thanks all of my readers for your help!

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